An Eclectic Journal of Opinion, History, Poetry and General Bloviating

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Celebrating Screenwriting Pioneer Jane Murfin

Jane Murfin, standing and Jane Cowl about 1917 at the time of their Broadway success.

I have been having fun
putzing around a Facebook group for
old movie buffs.Lots of great
discussions and some great clips.The
topic recently turned to screenwriters.The usual suspects like Billy
Wilder came up.But my mind turned
to the lesser known Jane Murfin one
of the most successful women writers in the movies in the ‘20’s and ‘30’s.

There are not a lot of
famous Murfins,so her name pops up a
lot if you Google my last name.I knew that she worked a lot with George Cukor and that she had her hand
in several memorable films.But not a
lot more.Curious, I did a bit of
research.This is what I found.

The first discovery was
that she was a Murfin by marriage.A
marriage that did not last very long, but she continued to use the name professionally
through two more marriages and a likely lifelong romantic relationship with a
close female friend and writing collaborator.

Jane
Macklem was born on October 27, 1884 in Quincy, Michigan. Raised
in a middle class home she was educated in local public school in Coldwater, Michigan and attended Michigan State Normal School. Despite the
training as a teacher, she was never interested in education—she wanted to go
on stage.

Her first appearance as
an actress was a small role in the touring production of popular comedian David Warfield’s hit The
Music Master.She befriended
another young actress in the production, Jane
Cowl.The two women not only became inseparable
lifelong friends, but writing partners.Their relationship was close and endured through Jane three
marriages.Whether or not it was also
sexual is a matter of some ambiguity.

Jane put aside her
stage ambitions in 1907 when she married James
Orin Murfin, a prominent attorney, former state senator, and a judge in Wayne County.Shortly after their marriage, Jane organized a
women’s drama club which made amateur productions.She also began her collaboration as a playwright
with Cowl.

She divorced her
husband in 1915 and was working as a script editor for Vitagraph Studios in Brooklyn.Murfin’s first stage collaboration with
Cowl, Lilac Time was a hit in 1917.The pair followed up rapidly with three more successful plays over the
next three years—Daybreak,Information Please, and Smilin’
Through.

During this period she
married actor/animal trainer/producer Laurence
Trimble.The couple moved to Hollywood in 1920.Cowl also relocated.

Together Trimble and Murfin
searched Europe for a dog to use in
movies.In Germany they discovered a three year old German Sheppard who had been trained for police work.They renamed the animal Strongheart.The animal
became the first big “movie star dog”, predating Rin Tin Tin.The couple
produced six films starring Strongheart while Murfin and Cowl adapted their
plays to films at other studios.In 1927
Murfin not only wrote, but got behind the camera to direct Flapper Wives in which
Strongheart appeared.

The adaptations of the
plays were also successful especially Smilin’
Through which was produced and starred in by Norma Talmadge, a top silent actress.The play had been produced under the joint
pen name of Alan Langdon Martin but
Cowl and Murfin shared screenwriting credit in their own names.The story was so popular it was remade as a
talkie in 1934 at MGM with two of
the studio’s top stars, Norma Shearer,
Fredrick March, and Leslie Howard
and yet again in 1941 with Jeanette
McDonald and Gene Raymond.

Murfin divorced Trimble
in 1927 and concentrated on her career as screenwriter, with and without
collaboration with Cowl.Way
Back Home in 1931, for which Murfin wrote the original story as well as
the script, was the break-out film that established her as a major—and bankable—writer.The film is best known today because it was
one of Bette Davis’s first films in
an important supporting role.

In 1932 Murfin married
for the third time to British born character actor Donald Crisp known for his work in costume dramas with Errol Flynn as well has beloved fathers
in the classics How Green Was My Valley, National Velvet, and Lassie,
Come Home.Crisp doubled as a
shrewd businessman and was on the board of the Bank of America, where he
oversaw loans that financed films.Since his support was critical for getting capital to produce a film, it
may have helped his wife get ever better assignments at major studios.The couple stayed together until 1944.

Murfin worked with George Cukor, the leading director of
“women’s pictures,” beginning the same year as her marriage to Crisp with What
Price Hollywood starring Constance
Bennett.Murfin and other writers on
the film received an Academy Award nomination.

Other memorable film
with Cuckor included uncredited dialogue in Little Women and The
Women (with Clair Booth Luce and
Anita Loos.

Among Murfin’s other notable
films were Spitfire, The Little Minister, and Alice
Adams all with Katherine Hepburn;the musical Roberta with Irene Dunn, Fred Astaire, and Ginger
Rogers; The Shining Hour in collaboration with Ogden Nash for Joan
Crawford; and Pride and Prejudice staring Greer Garson and Lawrence
Olivier in collaboration with Aldous
Huxley.

Murfin’s production
tapered off in the 1940’s as the women’s pictures in which she specialized went
out of style.She wrote Rosalind Russell’s roman a clef take on Emilia Earhart,
Flight for Freedomin 1943.Her
last film re-united her with Hepburn in Pearl
S. Buck’s Dragon Seed.

In 2008, 53 years after
Jane Murfin died in Los Angeles in
1955 at age 69, she again received screen credit for the updated version of The
Women starring Meg Ryan, Eva
Mendez, and Annette Bening.